13 Rue Madeleine (1947)
Starring: James Cagney
Director: Henry Hathaway
A neat World War II thriller, 13 Rue Madeleine benefits from the postwar craze for shooting outside the studio.
With Quebec doubling for occupied France, this is a spy movie with a sense of open air. James Cagney plays an OSS
agent, training his recruits for an important pre-D-Day mission. When one of them turns out to be a Nazi spy, Cagney
must parachute into France himself and straighten things out. Director Henry Hathaway and producer Louis de Rochemont
pioneered the docu-drama approach with The House on 92nd Street, and they again use newsreel footage and stentorian
narrator here, blended into the fictional story. The script is slightly muddled, but there are a fistful of suspenseful
situations and a gangbusters ending--as well as the typically wired-up Cagney, who is exactly the guy you want
on your side if D-Day is hanging in the balance. --Robert Horton

49th Parallel (1942)
Starring: Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier
Director: Michael Powell
During World War II, Michael Powell and his writer-producer partner Emeric Pressberger were enlisted to make films
in support of the British war effort. While many of their contemporaries turned out routine thrillers, Powell and
Pressberger created inventive dramas with a patriotic purpose. The 1941 adventure The 49th Parallel, about a small
German U-boat crew stranded in Canada off Hudson's Bay, is a prime example of wartime propaganda turned into rousing
entertainment with smart writing, engaging characters, and creative cinema. As the Germans traverse the length
of Canada, attempting to outrun authorities while seeking a passage to the still-neutral United States, they encounter
a wide array of citizens from all walks of life, including French Canadian trapper Laurence Olivier (with a perhaps
overenthusiastic accent), Hutterites Anton Walbrook and Glynis Johns, intellectual aesthete Leslie Howard, and
two-fisted AWOL soldier Raymond Massey. As the Nietzschian sermons of Nazi leader Hirth (Eric Portman) fall on
deaf ears, his party dwindles in number as the people of Canada rise up to stop his escape, not so much with violence
as with pure defiance. The rhetoric isn't subtle--the film was designed to both strengthen ties to Canada and encourage
America's entrance into the war--but the vivid location shooting provides a marvelous travelogue of Canada's landscapes
and natural beauty and a loving portrait of the rich culture north of the 49th parallel. The picture earned Emeric
Pressberger an Academy Award for his screenplay. This movie is also know as The Invaders. --Sean Axmaker

Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey
Director: Byron Haskin, Lloyd Bacon
Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey star in a unique film that shows what convoy duty was like for the Merchant
Marine in World War II. When their tanker is torpedoed by a German U-boat, Bogart and Massey take command of a
Liberty Ship, and their convoy must play cat and mouse with a German wolf pack. While clearly shown in a bad light,
the Germans are not heavily demonized, which was unusual for a patriotic war film of the time (1943). Another unusual
choice was having the Germans speaking only in their native language, with no subtitles. This realism helps carry
any dated elements, especially when combined with the accurate depiction of convoy techniques and battle tactics
(the footage was later used for actual training purposes). Even jaded viewers will be on pins and needles when
the convoy is attacked, and they hear the repeated German command of "Torpedo... LOS!" --Mark Savary

Anzio (1968)
Director: Edward Dmytryk
With most studios suddenly releasing piles of their old World War II films, it might be easy for "Anzio"
to get lost in the mix, and that would be a shame. The only film ever made about one of World War II's bloodiest
but least-heralded battles, "Anzio" may not be the best war film ever made, but it does fill an important
place in the genre. Directed by controversial blacklist era director Edward Dmytryk, whose "The Young Lions"
also arrives on DVD at this time, "Anzio" stars Robert Mitchum as a war correspondant caught up in the
confusion of the conflict. Like many such films made during the '60s, "Anzio" is beautifully photographed
(an impressive effort from the great Giuseppe Rotunno of "All That Jazz" fame), grittily acted and impressively
scaled. Dmytryk's polished staging compares well with present-day war films of a similar stripe, and should likely
remain the definitive "Anzio" film for many years to come.
Fans of war films will, of course, run to buy the "Anzio" disc, but for others the added value elements
are sorely lacking. Though well-mastered and transferred in the proud Columbia anamorphic video tradition, the
cupboard is almost bare in the extras deparatment -- just the usual trailer/bonus trailers. Considering the importance
of the event, one might at least have hoped for some production notes or even some talent files. Without them,
it's still a commendable disc, but the omission of anything more substantial is regrettable. The film (and its
fans) deserve more. -- Wade Major

Attack (1956)
Starring: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel
Directed by: Robert Aldrich
Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert) is a bombastic, but incompetent, military leader who jeopardizes the lives of the
men under his control. His lapdog of a colonel (Lee Marvin) tries his best to sweep Cooney's errors under the rug,
but soon the dastardly leaders have a problem on their hands in the form of Lt. Costa (Jack Palance). Costa swears
that Cooney is a dead man if the men are sent on another poorly-run, deadly mission. When Cooney puts Costa and
his men in another tight spot on the Belgian front, Costa -- who suffers a smashed arm in the skirmish -- sets
out to keep his word. A brutal portrait of war, a la PATHS OF GLORY. Based on Norman Brooks' play, THE FRAGILE
FOX.

Ballad of a Soldier (1960)
Starring: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko
Director: Grigori Chukhraj
Grigory Chukhraj's poetic odyssey of an accidental hero on a six-day pass is a sentimental journey through the
ideals of the Soviet state in World War II. Vladimir Ivashov is the fresh-faced signalman whose trip from the Russian
front to visit his white-haired mother becomes a series of detours as he stops to help the loyal comrades, fellow
soldiers, and salt-of-the-earth civilians (as well as a few shirkers and scoundrels) he meets along the way. On
a transport train he even falls in love with a pretty young stowaway, a feisty blond girl-next-door on her way
to visit a wounded boyfriend. Delicately photographed and gently paced, this deliriously romantic road movie is
undeniably Soviet in its celebration of patriotism and collectivism, but Chukhraj transcends politics with delightfully
vivid characters and a deft mix of comedy, melodrama, and romance. --Sean Axmaker

Band of Brothers (2001)
An impressively rigorous, unsentimental, and harrowing look at combat during World War II, Band of Brothers follows
a company of airborne infantry--Easy Company--from boot camp through the end of the war. The brutality of training
takes the audience by increments to the even greater brutality of the war; Easy Company took part in some of the
most difficult battles, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the failed invasion of Holland, and the Battle
of the Bulge, as well as the liberation of a concentration camp and the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. But what
makes these episodes work is not their historical sweep but their emphasis on riveting details (such as the rattle
of a plane as the paratroopers wait to leap, or a flower in the buttonhole of a German soldier) and procedures
(from military tactics to the workings of bureaucratic hierarchies). The scope of this miniseries (10 episodes,
plus an actual documentary filled with interviews with surviving veterans) allows not only a thoroughness impossible
in a two-hour movie, but also captures the wide range of responses to the stress and trauma of war--fear, cynicism,
cruelty, compassion, and all-encompassing confusion. The result is a realism that makes both simplistic judgments
and jingoistic enthusiasm impossible; the things these soldiers had to do are both terrible and understandable,
and the psychological price they paid is made clear. The writing, directing, and acting are superb throughout.
The cast is largely unknown, emphasizing the team of actors as a whole unit, much like the regiment; Damian Lewis
and Ron Livingston play the central roles of two officers with grit and intelligence. Band of Brothers turns a
vast historical event into a series of potent personal experiences; it's a deeply engrossing and affecting accomplishment.
--Bret Fetzer

Bataan (1943)
Starring: Robert Taylor, George Murphy
Director: Tay Garnett
Tay Garnett was a hard-nosed, job-of-all-work director who moved from studio to studio and genre to genre throughout
the golden age of Hollywood. He never achieved the status, let alone the distinctive signature, of a Howard Hawks
or Raoul Walsh; still, with talent, brashness, and cojones to spare, he was responsible for a slew of cheerfully
vulgar entertainments, and several genuinely fine films. Bataan may well be the best. Certainly it's one of the
strongest Hollywood salutes to the war effort while World War II was still raging. In his grittiest role to date,
Robert Taylor (sans mustache) plays a U.S. Army sergeant fighting a rear-guard action in the Philippine jungle,
covering Douglas MacArthur's retreat. His platoon is the usual wartime study in democratic motley: veterans (Lloyd
Nolan, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Dugan) thrown together with green recruits (Robert Walker, Barry Nelson), a Latino
(Desi Arnaz), a black (Kenneth Spencer), not to mention a couple of stalwart Filipinos (Roque Espiritu, J. Alex
Havier), and several officer types (George Murphy, Lee Bowman) with sense enough to defer to the sergeant's judgment.
As in John Ford's desert classic The Lost Patrol, the group is whittled down through misadventure, disease, and
skirmishes with the ever-advancing Japanese, till only a handful remain for a still-shattering last stand. Bataan
was made at MGM, and the principal setting, a jungle clearing overlooking a strategic bridge, stinks of the soundstage.
In other respects, however, Garnett manages to introduce shocking, un-Metro-like realism into the proceedings.
In an early scene of bombardment, a GI, blinded, crawls out of the wreckage of a field hospital only to have a
smoking roofbeam crush his bandaged skull. There's nothing cosmetic about the wounds in this movie; they hurt and
they bleed, and people get them during the most gruesome hand-to-hand combat in any '40s war movie. --Richard T.
Jameson

Battle Circus (1953)
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn, Robert Keith, Philip Ahn
Director: Richard Brooks
This prequel (in spirit) to M*A*S*H was made while the Korean War was still being fought. A tribute to the human
spirit, it portrays a realistic and unique vision of war from within the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals of the
Korean War. Humphrey Bogart stars as Major Jed Webbe, a hard-bitten and cynical surgeon with a taste for liquor
and ladies and the transient lifestyle of the M*A*S*H tents, which are dismantled and moved like a traveling circus
as the front line dictates. Ruth McGara (June Allyson) is a naive and honorable nurse who arrives fresh from the
States full of optimism and vitality, capturing the heart and spirit of the notorious ladies' man. Made in an almost
documentary-like style, this authentic vision of the grueling risks that the M*A*S*H nurses and surgeons faced
daily serves both as a tribute to their spirit and bravery and as a reminder of the horrors of war.

Battle of Blood Island (1960)
Cast: Richard Devon, Ron Kennedy
Two G.I.s are trapped on a Japanese held island after their entire batallion has been slaughtered. One of the men
is severely wounded and the two are forced to develop a symbiotic relationship out of desperation and loneliness.
This comaraderie explodes into an angry confrontation when old racial prejudices surface. Based on a story by Philip
Roth, this dramatic war story was directed by Joel Rapp in Puerto Rico. Made at the same time that Roger Corman
was filming "Last Woman on Earth" and "Creature from the Haunted Sea," "Battle of Blood
Island" utilizes many of the same outdoor locations and crew members. Roger Corman himself makes a cameo appearance
as a soldier in the film's dramatic conclusion.

Battle of Britain (1969)
Starring: Michael Caine, Trevor Howard
Director: Guy Hamilton
There's something about this film that's so irresistible, despite its grandiose manipulation. Maybe because it
recounts the greatest air battle in history, achieving the greatest aerial battle in film history. Maybe because
it has such a terrific cast (Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Curt Jurgens, Laurence Olivier, Nigel
Patrick, Christopher Plummer, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, and Edward Fox).
Maybe because it's so technically well-made, thanks to the Bond team of producer Harry Saltzman and director Guy
Hamilton and the great cinematographer Freddie Young. Or maybe because there is something truly riveting about
watching the British kick the Nazis back to Germany. --Bill Desowitz

Battle of the Bulge (1965)
Starring: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw
Director: Ken Annakin
This film was denounced by former President (and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WW2) Dwight Eisenhower
soon after its release in a press conference due to its glaring historical inaccuracies. The character of the German
Colonel was first intended to be the real life Panzer Colonel Joachim Peiper. However, since Peiper was an SS-Lieutenant
Colonel, a convicted war criminal, and still living at the time the film was produced, his character was quickly
changed to a ficticious Regular German Army officer, so as not to give Peiper any connection to the film.
The name of the song that the Germans sing is "Panzerlied". However, only the first four lines of the
song are actually sung.

The Bedford Incident (1965)
Starring: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier
Director: James B. Harris
At the peak of Cold War tensions, a U.S. naval ship discovers a Soviet submarine in the North Atlantic and proceeds
to scrutinize its every move. As the crew's Captain Findlander pushes forward intensely, relations between members
become strained and a battle of wits ensues. Sidney Poitier plays an unforturnate reporter who goes along to interview
the captain, but instead gets more of a story than he'd wanted as the drama builds to a heightened climax. Richard
Widmark is powerful and determined as the captain with shattered nerves.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Perhaps the most memorable film about the aftermath of World War II, it unfolds with the homecoming of three veterans
to the same small town. The leads all touch emotional truths: Loy seems able to express longing, joy, fear and
surprise - mostly with her back turned - in a particularly poignant welcome home. The movie never glosses over
the reality of altered lives and the inability to communicate the experience of war on the front lines or the home
front. A landmark achievement. WWII vet Russell, who lost his hands in the war, is the only person to win two Oscars
for the same role, Best Supporting Actor and a special Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow
veterans through his appearance."

The Big Red One (1980)
Starring: Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill
Director: Samuel Fuller
In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg depicts the D-day landings with a realism lauded by veterans. The Big
Red One depicts the D-day landings, too, and it was made by a veteran. Writer-director Samuel Fuller, who served
in the First Infantry Division from North Africa to Czechoslovakia (including the Normandy landings), made a career
out of swift, punchy B movies, such as Pickup on South Street and The Naked Kiss. The Big Red One became Fuller's
nod to A-movie filmmaking, yet it has the solid, matter-of-fact perspective of the ground-level infantryman. The
episodic action ranges all over the European theater, as a tough squad of American GIs (including Mark Hamill and
Robert Carradine) follow their hard-bitten sergeant (Lee Marvin, at his best) and try to stay alive. Filmed mostly
in Israel, the film delivers on the requisite war-movie conventions and tough-guy humor but also introduces notes
of poetry. Fuller's D-day doesn't match the pyrotechnics of Spielberg's version, but it creates power from the
simple image of a dead soldier's watch, ticking away in blood-soaked surf. A fine and memorable picture, The Big
Red One might have been even greater had it been released in Fuller's full-length cut--someday perhaps a restoration
will allow the director's vision to be seen for the first time. --Robert Horton

A Bridge too Far (1977)
Starring: Michael Caine, Sean Connery
Director: Richard Attenborough
This massive 1977 adaptation by director Richard Attenborough (Gandhi) of Cornelius Ryan's novel features an all-star
cast in an epic rendering of a daring but ultimately disastrous raid behind enemy lines in Holland during the Second
World War. A lengthy and exhaustive look at the mechanics of warfare and the price and futility of war, the film
is almost too large for its aims but manages to be both picaresque and affecting, particularly in the performance
of James Caan. The impressive cast includes Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Dirk
Bogarde, Sean Connery, and Liv Ullmann among others. While not a classic war film, it nevertheless manages to be
a consistently interesting and exciting adventure. --Robert Lane

The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
Director: John Guillermin
Fine casting, rugged characters, and authentic military detail make The Bridge at Remagen one of the best World
War II action films of the 1960s. Based on actual incidents during the final Allied advance on Germany in March
1945, the story focuses on the U.S. Army's exhausted 27th Armored Infantry, assigned to seize the bridge at Remagen,
on the Rhine River, to prevent 50,000 German troops from retreating to safety. Lieutenant Hartman (George Segal)
leads the mission, while a Nazi major (Robert Vaughan) defies orders by attempting to hold the bridge instead of
blowing it up. With strong emphasis on war's harsher realities, the film features compelling characters who illustrate
the camaraderie of survivors and the heroism of mavericks in the thick of battle. Segal and Ben Gazzara effectively
convey a hard-won friendship, and the film's dynamic action (filmed in Czechoslovakia and Italy) never overwhelms
the story's emotional impact. Highly recommended. --Jeff Shannon

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness
Director: David Lean
Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and
a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness
in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre. The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated
deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with
building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel
Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions
for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge,
provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project,
led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's
suspense and forward momentum. Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that
survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit
disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing
remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed
as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic
edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into
Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing
moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact. Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge
on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves
its original aspect ratio. --Sam Sutherland

The Bunker (1981)
Director: George Schaefer
A made-for-television dramatization of Hitler's final days, holed up in his underground fortress. Anthony Hopkins
won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of the Nazi leader.

The Burmese Harp (1967)
Starring: Rentaro Mikuni, Shôji Yasui
Director: Kon Ichikawa
A poetic trek across a pain-filled landscape, this powerful antiwar film is a classic example of Ichikawa's (Fires
on the Plain) visual intensity and unyielding pacifism. Set at the close of World War II, The Burmese Harp focuses
on the obsessions that drive one Japanese soldier to stay in Burma while his company tries to escape into neutral
land. A stunning evocation of the private's spiritual conversion shows him surrounded by corpses, facing the insurmountable
task of burying Japan's war dead.

The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Humphrey Bogart is heartbreaking as the tragic Captain Queeg in this 1954 film, based on a novel by Herman Wouk,
about a mutiny aboard a navy ship during World War II. Stripped of his authority by two officers under his command
(played by Van Johnson and Robert Francis) during a devastating storm, Queeg becomes a crucial witness at a court
martial that reveals as much about the invisible injuries of war as anything. Edward Dmytryk (Murder My Sweet,
Raintree County) directs the action scenes with a sure hand and nudges his all-male cast toward some of the most
well-defined characters of 1950s cinema. The courtroom scenes alone have become the basis for a stage play (and
a television movie in 1988), but it is a more satisfying experience to see the entire story in context. --Tom Keogh

Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Penélope Cruz, Christian Bale, David Morrissey, John Hurt
Directed by: John Madden
The idyllic beauty of Greece's Mediterranean coast has been invaded by Italy, bringing legions of soldiers to the
once tranquil island of Cephallonia. Captain Antonio Corelli (Nicolas Cage), an officer with an irrepressibly jovial
personality and passion for the mandolin, initially alienates a number of the villagers, including Pelagia (Penelope
Cruz). The daughter of the village doctor, Pelagia is an educated and strong-willed woman, and while at first offended
by the Italian soldier's behavior, she slowly warms to his certain charms as they are forced to share her father's
home.

Catch-22 (1970)
Starring: Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam
Director: Mike Nichols
Joseph Heller's novel was one of the seminal literary events of the 1960s, but Mike Nichols's film ultimately proved
too literal in its attempt to bring Heller's fragmented fiction to the screen. Still, Nichols, who made this on
the heels of The Graduate, seemed the ideal candidate to tackle this Buck Henry adaptation. The story deals with
bomber pilot Yossarian (Alan Arkin), who has flown enough missions to get out of World War II but can't because
the number of missions needed for discharge keeps getting raised. The satire and absurdity of Heller's book get
lost in Nichols's effort to give screen time to the members of his all-star cast, which includes Orson Welles,
Jon Voight, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Richard Benjamin, and Martin Sheen, among others. --Marshall Fine

China (1943)
Director: John Farrow
An American war profiteer trades his oil to the Japanese until the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers against
Chinese civilians compels him to institute an embargo.

Come and See (1985)
Starring: Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova
Director: Elem Klimov
A crowning achievement of 1980's Soviet cinema, Elem Klimov's Come And See is perhaps the ultimate WWII film. This
savage and lyrical fever dream of death, rage and terror experienced through young eyes is a virtual primer for
the subsequent, similarly psychedelic intensity of Terrence Malick's "The thin Red Line" and Spielberg's
"Saving Private Ryan," Klimov's elegant, harrowing union of unflinching ferocity and dreamlike clarity
moved "Empire of the Sun" author J.G. Ballard to declare Come And See the greatest war film ever made.
Time Out New York agreed, saying "Come And See's nimble balance of the sordid with the elegiac makes Peckinpah's
'Cross of Iron' seem like 'Newsies.' When young Florya willingly joins a group of Partisans fighting the Nazis
in Byelorussia, USSR, he little suspects that he is plunging through the looking glass. Separated from his comrades
during a paratroop attack and struck deaf by German artillery, Florya - in the company of Glascha, a beguiling
peasant girl - wanders a battle-scorched Russian purgatory of prehistoric forests and man-made slaughter. Florya's
journey takes him and us through a gallery of exquisitely poetic imagery and brutal human atrocity. Unlike traditional
war films, Come And See never stoops to convenient heroic catharsis or genre movie narrative symmetry. Images of
a beautiful girl's impromptu dance in the rain and an SS unit's spontaneous, self-congratulatory applause at their
own butchery haunt with equal power. More than any other war film, Come And See unites the powerful truths and
inescapable dilemmas that lurk behind both the raptures of youth and the horrors of war.

Conspiracy (2001)
Director: Frank Pierson
On January 20, 1942, with the tide of war turning in favor of the Allies, a small group of SS officers, government
ministers, and Nazi officials met near Berlin to decide the fate of Europe's Jews. Based on the only surviving
record of that meeting, Conspiracy is a powerful combination of historical reconstruction and speculation that
attempts to offer new insights into a pivotal moment in history. The cast does a marvelous job of fleshing out
the documentary evidence to create convincing characters. Kenneth Branagh is especially chilling as SS Chief of
Security Reinhard Heydrich, who uses a combination of charm and ruthless power-mongering to gain support for his
plans. Colin Firth is fascinating as Wilhelm Stuckart, a lawyer who sees the brutal tactics of the SS as a threat
to his own intellectualized anti-Semitism, and Stanley Tucci gives a wonderfully understated performance as Adolf
Eichmann. Conspiracy is a carefully crafted, completely unsensational film that offers ample proof of the banality
of evil. There are no histrionics and no comic-book Nazi villains, just a small group of politicians and war-weary
soldiers arguing about the meaning of words and the logistics of extermination, calmly preparing to unleash an
unimaginable horror on the world. --Simon Leake

The Counterfeit Traitor (1962)
Based on a shocking true story, this film tells of the true adventures of Eric Erickson, a naturalized Swede born
in America, who poses as a Nazi sympathizer while actually spying for Allied forces. When a fellow spy, whom he
has fallen in love with, is discovered and murdered in front of his own eyes, he must control his anger and act
like he knew nothing of her political betrayal. The final step, is, of course, returning to freedom without being
discovered himself. Holden is riveting in this suspenseful thriller.

Cross of Iron (1976)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah weighs in on World War II--and from the German point of view. The result is as bleak, if not quite
as bloody, as one expects, in part because the 1977 film was cut to ribbons by nervous studio executives. The assorted
excerpts that remain don't constitute an exhilarating or even an especially thrilling battle epic. The war is grinding
to a close, and veterans like James Coburn's Steiner are grimly aware that it's a lost cause. The battlefield is
a death trap of sucking mud and barbed wire, and the German generals (viz., the martinet played by James Mason)
seem to pose a bigger threat to the life and limbs of Steiner's men than the inexorable enemy. Not even Peckinpah's
famous sensuous exuberance when shooting violence is much in evidence; the picture is a depressive, claustrophobically
overcast experience. The bloody high (or low) point isn't a shooting; it's a wince-inducing de-penis-tration during
oral sex. For a fun time with the men in (Nazi) uniform, try Das Boot instead. --David Chute

D-Day: The Sixth of June (1956)
Director: Henry Koster
D-Day the Sixth of June is a misleading title for a very tame wartime romance with barely 10 minutes of combat
in the last reel. What we mostly get is a year's worth of flashbacks depicting the reluctant, London-based affair
of a married U.S. staff officer (Robert Taylor) and a British Red Cross worker (Dana Wynter) whose commando suitor
(Richard Todd) is fighting in Africa. To be sure, the emotional desperation and embattled decency of good people
in time of war is as worthy of film treatment as any military campaign, and the script works preinvasion Anglo-American
tensions into the story. But the CinemaScope production is utterly formulaic, with leaden direction by Henry Koster.
Wynter's porcelain beauty apparently didn't permit changes of expression, and Taylor looks about 15 years past
his prime. On the plus side, the DVD serves up Lee Garmes's pleasantly pastel Deluxe Color with commendable crispness.
--Richard T. Jameson

Darby's Rangers (1957)
Suggested by the book DARBY’S RANGERS by historian Major James Altieri, this film successfully combines the talents
of old pro action director William Wellman with those of James Garner, in his first starring role. Garner portrays
Major William Darby, the leader of an elite commando brigade that faces the Axis powers in North Africa and Italy.
He unexpectedly finds himself spending equal amounts of time preparing his troops and sorting out their onshore
amours. The film successfully shows his noble attempt to balance both desires and how the two types of missions
intermingle in unexpected ways. Garner's performance works because it is more sincere than wry, and Wellman handles
the action-packed aerial sequences with marked finesse. DARBY'S RANGERS was the final film of Wellman's illustrious
directorial career.

Dark Blue World (2001)
Starring: Ondrej Vetchý, Krystof Hádek
Director: Jan Sverák
Director Jan Sverák's Dark Blue World embraces sentimentality with such brio it is hard to resist. The film
relays the little-known WWII story of Czech fighter pilots who escaped the Nazi occupation of their country to
fight in Britain's Royal Air Force. Those who survived the battles were placed in work camps upon their return
home by a then-entrenched, paranoid Communist regime. Sverák (Kolya) tacks back and forth between Franta
(Ondrej Vetchy), a worldly captain in the defunct Czech Air Force, and Karel (Krystof Hádek), his earnest
young recruit, as they leave home to fight the enemy on foreign soil. Only one returns to tell his story, from
a prison hospital bed. While enduring life in the RAF with fellow Czech pilots, Franta and Karel manage to fall
in love with the same woman, learn English, swing dance, recite poems, sing rousing Czech songs, and perform heroic
feats. Dogfights in the air and inevitable losses ensue, but it is the genuine camaraderie evoked by a gifted cast
of Czech actors that saves the film from effusive excess. Like a charismatic captain steeling his company before
battle, Sverák can't resist indulging romantic clichés, but his actors, in their fresh intensity,
are more than up to the task set before them. --Fionn Meade

Das Boot (1982)
Starring: Jürgen Prochnow
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
This is the restored, 209-minute director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's harrowing and claustrophobic U-boat thriller,
which was theatrically rereleased in 1997. Originally made as a six-hour miniseries, this version devotes more
time to getting to know the crew before they and their stoic captain (Jürgen Prochnow) get aboard their U-boat
and find themselves stranded at the bottom of the sea. Das Boot puts you inside that submerged vessel and explores
the physical and emotional tensions of the situation with a vivid, terrifying realism that few movies can match.
As Petersen tightens the screws and the submerged ship blows bolts, the pressure builds to such unbearable levels
that you may be tempted to escape for a nice walk on solid land in the great outdoors--only you wouldn't dream
of looking away from the screen. --Jim Emerson

The Desert Fox (1951)
Starring: James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke
Director: Henry Hathaway
What a difference a few years can make. The Desert Fox, released six years after the end of World War II, is a
solemnly respectful tribute to Erwin Rommel, Germany's most celebrated military genius. James Mason's portrayal
of this gallant warrior became a highlight of his career iconography. The film itself is oddly disjointed: a precredit
commando raid to liquidate Rommel is followed by a flashback to the field-marshal's lightning successes commanding
the Afrika Korps—-a compressed account via documentary footage and copious narration (spoken by Michael Rennie,
who also dubs Desmond Young, the Rommel biographer and onetime British POW appearing briefly as himself). The dramatic
core is Rommel's growing disenchantment with Hitler (Luther Adler), his involvement in the plot to assassinate
der Führer, and his subsequent martyrdom. Mason's Rommel returned two years later for a flamboyant, mostly
German-speaking cameo in The Desert Rats, a prequel focusing on the battle for Tobruk. --Richard T. Jameson

The Desert Rats (1953)
Director: Robert Wise
In his second Hollywood role (between Oscar-nominated turns in My Cousin Rachel and The Robe), Richard Burton stars
as a Scottish commando put in charge of a battalion of the 9th Australian Division defending Tobruk. The Aussies
don't like him, and with a year of grim North African duty already under his belt, he's not too crazy about his
new responsibilities either. The outfit is charged with staving off the battering assaults of Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel for two months, to give the British Army time to regroup in Cairo and prepare for a counterattack. In the
end, the "desert rats" play hell with the Desert Fox for 242 days, during which they and their commander
develop some mutual respect. This is a solid, workmanlike World War II picture that, having been made in 1953 rather
than 1943, can acknowledge a degree of eccentric humanity and soldierly professionalism in the enemy. Featured
guest star James Mason reprises his Rommel from The Desert Fox (1951)--playing all his scenes in German except
for a scene of ironical repartee with Burton. Another distinguished Brit, Robert Newton, gets costar billing as
a boozy, self-confessed coward who used to be Burton's schoolmaster once upon a time. However, a goodly number
of Australians--including Chips Rafferty and Charles "Bud" Tingwell (still going strong nearly 50 years
later in Paul Cox's wonderful Innocence)--rate at least as much screen time. Robert Wise directed, with a trimness
that reminds us he started out as an editor, and the pungent black-and-white cinematography is by Lucien Ballard.
--Richard T. Jameson

The Devil's Brigade (1968)
Starring: William Holden, Cliff Robertson
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Dismissed in 1968 as a plodding rip-off of The Dirty Dozen--without that 1967 film's sardonic, antiestablishment
satire--The Devil's Brigade now plays like a nostalgic last gasp of the sentimental World War II action genre.
Celebrating the 1st Special Service Force (a commando-like unit formed to fight in Norway but ultimately deployed
in Italy), this typically broad Andrew V. McLaglen production recounts the teaming of some miscreant GIs with "the
handpicked best of the best-trained army in the world"--the Canadians--under a U.S. officer (William Holden)
who had never commanded men in combat. The first hour, heavy on machismo and low comedy, depicts the unit's training
at an abandoned base in Montana, with nonstop international rivalry until Yanks and Canadians bond in a lusty saloon
brawl. After that, the Germans are easy meat. Holden is solid, as usual, and so is the widescreen work of veteran
cameraman William H. Clothier, impeccably rendered on the DVD. --Richard T. Jameson

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Starring: Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters
Director: George Stevens
George Stevens (Giant) directed this 1959 film adaptation of the hit play based on the writings of Anne Frank,
the Jewish girl from Amsterdam who hid in an attic with her family and others during the Nazi occupation. As Anne,
Millie Perkins is something of a milky eyed enigma and--in retrospect--too old for the part; but she is surrounded
by an outstanding cast, including Joseph Schildkraut as Anne's patient father, Ed Wynn as a cranky dentist who
moves into Anne's "room," and Shelley Winters as the loud Mrs. Van Daan. Stevens turns the many overlapping
dramas of the caged characters into the foundation of Anne's growth as a young woman, ready for life and love just
at the moment the dream comes to an end. Beautifully shot by cinematographer William C. Mellor, and written by
Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett from their stage production. --Tom Keogh

The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Starring: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine
Director: Robert Aldrich
A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from \ 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has
become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller.
Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional
redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and
psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialized soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful
misdeeds. Of course, there's a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin's band of badmen must agree to a suicide
mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It's a hazardous path to glory,
but the men have no other choice than to accept and regain their lost honor. What makes The Dirty Dozen special
is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine,
John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is
the Oscar-nominated standout as one of Marvin's most rebellious yet heroic men, but it's the whole ensemble--combined
with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich--that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser. The script
by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller (from the novel by E.M. Nathanson) is strong enough to support the all-star
lineup with ample humor and military grit, so if you're in need of a mainline jolt of testosterone, The Dirty Dozen
is the movie for you. --Jeff Shannon

Donovan's Reef (1963)
Starring: John Wayne, Lee Marvin
Director: John Ford
John Wayne's last film with mentor and long-time collaborator John Ford (The Searchers) is a 1963 comedy about
a group of war veterans settled on a South Pacific island. When the daughter of one of them (Jack Warden) comes
for a visit, the freewheeling status quo between the boys is disrupted. This is Ford in his chummy, amiable, roughhousing
mode--think of Victor McLaglen's drunken fight scene in Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon--and it is entirely pleasurable.
Wayne is comfortable in his man's-man role, and Lee Marvin (who played Wayne's nemesis in The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance) is effectively roguish. --Tom Keogh

The Eagle has Landed (1976)
Starring: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland
Director: John Sturges
This 1976 adventure story set in World War II concerns a Nazi plot to kidnap Churchill from his retreat--or murder
him if need be. The large, great cast and a director, John Sturges, who's been down this road of ensemble action
before (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape) make this project exciting if not as memorable as Sturges's more
famous works. The weak ending doesn't help. -- Tom Keogh

Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Starring: Jude Law, Ed Harris
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Like Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of
Stalingrad--re-created in epic scale, as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution
if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud captures this madness with urgent authenticity,
creating a massive context for a more intimate battle waged amid the city's ruins. Embellished from its basis in
fact, the story shifts to an intense cat-and-mouse game between a Russian shepherd raised to iconic fame and a
German marksman whose skill is unmatched in its lethal precision. Vassily Zaitzev (Jude Law) has been sniping Nazis
one bullet at a time, while the German Major Konig (Ed Harris) has been assigned to kill Vassily and spare Hitler
from further embarrassment. There's love in war as Vassily connects with a woman soldier (Rachel Weisz), but she
is also loved by Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), the Soviet officer who promotes his friend Vassily as Russia's much-needed
hero. This romantic rivalry lends marginal interest to the central plot, but it's not enough to make this a classic
war film. Instead it's a taut, well-made suspense thriller isolated within an epic battle, and although Annaud
and cowriter Alain Godard (drawing from William Craig's book and David L. Robbins's novel The War of the Rats)
fail to connect the parallel plots with any lasting impact, the production is never less than impressive. Highly
conventional but handled with intelligence and superior craftsmanship, this is warfare as strategic entertainment,
without compromising warfare as a manmade hell on Earth. --Jeff Shannon

Europa, Europa (1991)
Starring: Marco Hofschneider, Salomon Perel
Director: Agnieszka Holland
This wonderful film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Total Eclipse), based on an autobiography by Solomon
Perel, concerns a Jewish-German boy who manages to conceal his identity from the Nazis and ends up a member of
their Youth Party. An admirably full experience, the film is both black comedy and horror show, with the central
character taking the full measure of everyone's perspective on the war and Nazi crimes. --Tom Keogh

Father Goose (1964)
Starring: Cary Grant, Leslie Caron
Director: Ralph Nelson
Cary Grant's penultimate feature before retirement was this cheerful 1964 effort to overturn his career-long image
of urbane sophistication. As the unshaven, messy misanthrope Walter Eckland, a World War II-era beach bum who monitors
Japanese air activity for the Australian navy in exchange for booze, Grant makes a convincingly hard-bitten, hard-drinking
antihero. Until, that is, a pretty French schoolmistress (Leslie Caron) and her seven little charges (all girls)
survive a nearby plane crash and invade Eckland's raunchy isolation. Directed by 1960s hit-maker Ralph Nelson (The
Lilies of the Field, Charly), Father Goose is a glossy comedy that also does justice to its more suspenseful scenes
(a deadly snakebite suffered by Caron's character is especially memorable) and leaves plenty of room for Grant
to indulge in some entertaining if atypical screen behavior. All in all, this is a minor treat in the actor's magnificent
filmography. --Tom Keogh

Fatherland (1994)
Director: Christopher Menaul
This retro-futuristic adventure depicts a 1964 in which Hitler won the war and Joe Kennedy Sr. is U.S. president.
Europe is known as Germania and opens its borders to American journalists, hoping to line up the U.S. as an ally
against Russia. Set design and costumes very effectively create a potent and prosperous state, culled both from
imagination and the history books. More downbeat and perhaps more effective than Robert Harris's chilling novel,
Fatherland is brought to life by Rutger Hauer as an SS officer who stumbles onto eye-opening secrets. Miranda Richardson
is the tough-cookie American caught up in a web of lies made all the more intriguing by a superb supporting cast.
They hook up to solve a murder and uncover an atrocity dating back to World War II. Watch for a particularly nasty
Jean Marsh in a supporting role; she steals every scene in which she appears. --Rochelle O'Gorman

The Fighting Rats of Tobruk (1944)
Chips Rafferty, Peter Finch, and Grant Taylor (all of whom are Australian) star in this wartime drama about one
of Australia's greatest military legends: The Rats of Tobruk. Rafferty and Taylor play two tough Australian soldiers
and Finch the slightly stuffy Englishman they befriend, who are part of the battalion commanded to hold the Libyan
city of Tobruk against invasion by Germany's Afrika Corps, led by General Erwin Rommel. Commanded to hold the city
for two months against blitzkrieg attacks that had not yet been successfully repelled, so that reinforcements could
be sent. In the course of the fighting, the Germans blasted insults as well as artillery at the largely Aussie
troops, likening them to rats. Using this as a rallying cry, the "rats" of Tobruk defended the city for
250 days, winning an important battle against the Germans, and helping to turn the tide of WWII.

The Fighting Seabees (1944)
Starring: John Wayne, Susan Hayward
Director: Edward Ludwig
All-American hero John Wayne takes a crew of construction workers and turns them into one of WWII's toughest fighting
forces in this action-packed war classic. But first he has to convince the army brass to let his civilians bear
arms, and then he's got to whip them into combat shape. Now Wayne is fighting for his life on a different battlefield
when he's brought up on court-martial charges for leading his troops in an all-out assault against the Japanese.
It's Wayne at his best, playing the kind of rough-and-tumble man of honor that made him a legend and Hollywood's
biggest star. An entertaining combination of strong supporting performances by Daniel O'Keefe and ravishing, about-to-be
superstar Susan Hayward.

Fires on the Plain (1962)
Starring: Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, Eiji Funakoshi
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Worthy to stand beside Kon Ichikawa's antiwar masterpiece The Burmese Harp, this chilling film focuses intensely
on the brutality of war and man's unwavering passion for life. Separated from his unit at the close of World War
II, a Japanese soldier encounters death, starvation, and cannibalism in a Philippine jungle.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)Starring: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter
Director: Billy WilderBilly Wilder's only war film, an adaptation of the work of Hungarian
playwright Lajos Biro, stars Franchot Tone as British tank officer John J. Bramble. The only surviving member of
a tank crew in North Africa during WWII, part of the Eighth Army, which has been routed by Rommel's celebrated
Afrika Korps, he reaches the Empress of Britain Hotel in a small desert town delusional from heat exposure. Hotel
owner Farid (Akim Tamiroff) hides him from the arriving Nazi troops, who accompany Rommel to his hotel. When he
comes around, Farid disguises John as one of his waiters, now dead, who had been a Nazi spy. John hopes, in the
manner to kill the German general, but is dissuaded from doing so by a captured British officer, and instead learns
the secret of the Afrika Korps success. During the 1930s, the Germans had hidden supplies, especially tank fuel,
all across Egypt, in the event that war erupted. The five supply dumps are called 'graves' by the Germans, and
it becomes John's mission to locate them so that they can be destroyed. An excellent, suspenseful wartime melodrama,
leavened with the typical Wilder wit, as a bonus. Tone leads a superb supporting cast which also includes Peter
Van Eyck and Miles Mander.

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough
Director: Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich's tense, 1965 drama about a plane crash in the Sahara is a unique psychological study of men in
desperate circumstances. In this somewhat revisionist view of classic heroism, every character within the mixed
lot is stretched to his limit, and individual efforts to brave the elements and hostile nomads are duly punished.
What is left is collective will and ingenuity. One could call this an allegory for transcending Cold War madness,
perhaps, but Aldrich (Kiss Me Deadly) makes this such a gritty, immediate experience that you can feel the desert
sand in your teeth. Superb performances by James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Hardy Krüger, Peter Finch,
and the rest. --Tom Keogh

Force 10 From Navarone (1978)
Starring: Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford
Director: Guy Hamilton
Generally underrated by critics, this 1978 sequel to the famous Guns of Navarone finds a miscellaneous group of
commandos and spies trying to hinder the Nazis by destroying a bridge between them and the partisans. The story
(based on a novel by Alistair MacLean) has nothing to do with the first film, but it is a tightly woven and entertaining
piece with sharp performances and delightful character alliances. Director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger) brings his
trademark eye for handsome vistas to the canvas as well, so this is hardly the shoddy and dull knockoff many reviewers
have previously suggested. No classic, perhaps, but a lot of fun. --Tom Keogh

A Foreign Affair (1948)
Starring: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich
Director: Billy Wilder
Jean Arthur stars as Congresswoman Phoebe Frost in Wilder's satire of American sexual mores. She arrives in bombed-out
postwar Berlin in 1947 as part of a congressional delegation assigned to investigate the moral behavior of the
American occupying troops. As part of her mission, she delivers a cake baked by his fiancee to Capt. John Pringle
(John Lund), who immediately trades it on the black market for a mattress, which he takes to the apartment of his
current girlfriend, Erika von Schluetow (Marlene Dietrich), an alluring German nightclub singer. While touring
the city, researching the G.I.s appetite for blond German women and alcohol, Phoebe, mistaken for a German, is
picked up by some of the soldiers and taken to a club which features the singing of Erika. When she sees a familiar
cake being served, she becomes suspicious and orders John to watch the woman's apartment to identify her American
lover. After seeing some newsreel footage of Erika with Hitler, Phoebe asks John to show her the woman's file,
but he distracts her from further investigation by coming on to the congresswoman, who responds with surprising
passion. A comedy edged with cruelty, it features one of Dietrich's quintessential performances.

Foyle's War (2002)
Starring: Michael Kitchen
Foyle's War is the rare mystery series that does more than plop a good detective into the middle of a decorative
and bygone era. Created by writer Anthony Horowitz, Foyle's War makes profoundly resonant use of British society
in 1940, a terrifying time in which the threat of an Axis assault on England disrupted ordinary life in often horrible
ways, from the resettlement of city children (into the care of rural strangers) to a spike in xenophobia to a loss
of personal freedoms. Against this heady backdrop is the near-solitary figure of Detective Chief Superintendent
Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), a London investigator who would rather be fighting Hitler abroad but is stuck
solving domestic homicides--generally sparked by wartime fervor--with the help of a plucky driver (Honeysuckle
Weeks) and a steadfast assistant (Anthony Howell). Kitchen's magnificently measured performance and Horowitz's
masterful grasp of the moral and dramatic issues of his battle-scarred milieu make Foyle's War a must. --Tom Keogh

From Here to Eternity (1953)
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Here's a model for adapting a novel into a movie. The bestseller by James Jones, a frank and hard-hitting look
at military life, could not possibly be made into a film in 1953 without considerably altering its length and bold
subject matter. Yet screenwriter Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann (both of whom won Oscars for their
work) pared it down and cleaned it up, without losing the essential texture of Jones's tapestry. The setting is
an army base in Hawaii in 1941. Montgomery Clift, in a superb performance, plays a bugler who refuses to fight
for the company boxing team; he has reasons for giving up the sport. His refusal results in harsh treatment from
the company commander, whose bored wife (Deborah Kerr) is having an affair with the tough-but-fair sergeant (Burt
Lancaster). You remember--the scene with the two of them embracing on the beach, as the surf crashes in. The supporting
players are as good as the leads: Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed won Oscars (and Sinatra revitalized his entire career),
and Ernest Borgnine entered the gallery of all-time movie villains, as the stockade sergeant who makes Sinatra
miserable. Zinnemann's work is efficient but also evocative, capturing the time and place beautifully, the tropical
breezes as well as the lazy prewar indulgence. This one is deservedly a classic. --Robert Horton